(Photo: Ecumenical News / Peter Kenny)Patriarch Ignace III Yousif Yunan (L), of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi, head of the Vatican Mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq at a press conference at the U.N. in Geneva on September 16, 2014.

The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch has barred at least 12 of its clerics living in the United States, Sweden, Australia and Canada from carrying out their ministry, for failing to seek permission to flee Iraq.